Europe determined to preserve JCPOA

Tehran hosted Spanish Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis on Wednesday who was in Iran, at the head of an economic delegation, for two days to discuss bilateral political and economic issues as well as a number of regional topics with top Iranian officials.

Dastis’ visit to Tehran was concurrent with that of Dutch Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs Sigrid Kaag to the Iranian capital.

Being two of the top officials of the European Union’s diplomatic apparatus, Dastis and Kaag, on Wednesday, held separate meetings with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani and Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior advisor to the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei on international affairs.

French Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-yves Le Drian also announced on Tuesday that he will travel to Tehran in coming days. British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson had visited Iran in late December.

The talks during each of these foreign ministerial visits to the Middle Eastern state has so far mainly focused on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the security in the Middle East – particularly regarding the condition in Syria and Yemen – and ways to expand mutual cooperation. However, there is no doubt that the JCPOA has been, and will be, the main topic of discussion in all of these visits.

Yet, the question is what has happened that Iran is again being the destination of a new round of compressed back-to-back visits by European states’ top diplomats, while some of these countries, such as the UK, had refrained from sending their foreign minister to Tehran over the past two years. In addition, many of these ministers’ visit to Iran, has been, and will be, the first of its kind during their term in office.

The answer is clear: Donald Trump’s threats has put the JCPOA and the continuation of its implementation to test.

Iran’s nuclear deal with the P5+1, , was the outcome of two years of intense and continuous negotiations between the Iranian negotiating team and the six world powers including the US, the UK, France, Russia and China – as the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council – and Germany. The deal was signed on July 14, 2015, in the Austrian capital of Vienna as a historic move.

Three of the members of the 5+1 are European countries, in addition to which, Federica Mogherini, the high representative of the EU for foreign affairs and security policy, who represents all the 28 EU member states, has played a key role in talks with Tehran and the conclusion of the nuclear agreement.

However, while all the major powers and the EU have constantly been, and still are, affirming their all-out and full commitment to the implementation of the JCPOA, currently, Trump is disagreeing with the deal and, instead of fulfilling his commitment, he is making excuses on a daily basis, threatening to withdraw from the agreement in an attempt to wriggle out of his country’s commitments.

From the very early days of his election campaign, Trump has always insisted on describing the JCPOA as the “worst deal ever” in the US history and has made huge efforts to withdraw from it. He, however, has so far failed to accomplish his objectives in this regard. Nonetheless, in mid-january 2018, when Trump was compelled to again personally extend the JCPOA and Iran’s relief from western sanctions, he warned that in case the deal does not undergo certain revisions within a period of 120 days, he will refrain from remaining committed to its contents.

In the face of such US behavior, Iran has stressed that it will be committed to the JCPOA as long as other signatories to the deal continue to honor the agreement, fulfil their commitment and allow Iran to benefit from it.

Under such circumstances, the EU plays a very critical and key role. Europe has repeatedly announced that the JCPOA must be preserved and that it will do its best to this end.

The Wednesday trip of the Spanish and Dutch foreign ministers to Iran and that of their French counterpart in coming days, are, in fact, a sign and criterion for assessing the level of the EU’S influence, honesty and commitment to and preservation of the JCPOA. This is why the JCPOA has been the main focus of the talks between all of the visiting European foreign ministers and Iranian officials. Shamkhani has clearly voiced Iran’s stance toward the implementation of the JCPOA and the US threats. On Wednesday, he told Dastis that the US scheme for the revision of the JCPOA and using it as a hostage to minimize Tehran’s benefits is nothing but a political game, adding Iran explicitly announces that in case the nuclear deal fails to serve its interests, Tehran will not see any reason to continue with it.

Iran is not the only beneficiary of the JCPOA. The interests of the EU members in different fields also lie in the continued implementation of the deal. As per the mutual relations, for instance, trade between Iran and Spain stood at €4.7 billion in 2011, a year prior to the intensification of the Western sanctions against Tehran, of which over €4 billion pertained to the Middle Eastern state’s crude oil exports to the southwestern European country.

Although following the intensification of the embargoes on Iran, this figure dropped significantly, after the going into effect of the JCPOA and the removal of the sanctions in January 2016, prosperity has been brought back to Tehranmadrid relations with the Iranian exports to Spain witnessing a 26-time increase in 2017, compared to the preceding year, and the two countries’ mutual trade standing at $2 billion in the same year.

Likewise, Spain is currently exporting industrial products to Iran and scores of Spanish companies have made investments in Iranian projects and are actively present in the Asian county’s market.

In addition to its mutual relations with Iran, the EU is quite aware of Tehran’s significant role and effectiveness in regional developments, combating terrorism and overcoming crises such as those in Yemen and Syria. It is clear that in the absence of assistance from Iran, none of the important regional security issues will be resolved. Speaking in a recent meeting of the Commission of Foreign Relations of the Congress of Deputies, Dastis explicitly acknowledged that undoubtedly Spain views Iran as a key country in preserving the regional stability, saying Madrid is required to continue exchanging views with Tehran and seeking consultation from the country.

Europe is extremely concerned about heightened tension in the region, especially given Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent threats against Tehran in the 54th Munich Security Conference, uttered as a consequence of an Israeli F-16 jet being shot down in Syria, saying Israel will attack Iran if necessary.

Iran neither does pay attention to such empty threats nor is intimidated by them. It is clear to all, particularly European states, which the declaration of such remarks by Netanyahu are in fact playing with fire.

* This article by Mohammadreza Naderi Geysvar, an EU and Spanish affairs expert, was first published in Farsi by IRNA.